Indonesia
High court overturns 15-year prison term after appeal by prosecutors
Protesters display placards that read ‘Stop death penalty’ during a rally in front of the presidential palace in Jakarta on April 28, 2015. (Photo: AFP)
A 57-year-old man from Indonesia’s West Java province has been sentenced to death for raping 10 young girls aged 5-11.
In an April 26 ruling, Bandung High Court judges overturned a lower court’s 15-year sentence handed down to Hendi (alias Abah Heni) in March following an appeal by prosecutors.
Cibadak District Court had also ordered him to pay 250 million rupiah (about US$17,600) in compensation to his victims.
“We accept the appeal of the prosecutors that the original sentence did not befit the crime, so we accordingly sentence the defendant to death,” said Yuli Heryati, who chaired the panel of judges.
Hendi, who like many Indonesians goes by only one name, was described as a predator who raped the girls over a period of four years between 2017 and 2021 at his home when some victims were there to play with his daughter.
Others he would lure to his home in Sukabumi district with promises of money and would threaten them to keep quiet about the abuse afterwards, the court was told.
“No one, including the state, can take someone else’s life, especially so when there is no evidence that the death sentence has a deterrent effect on crime”
His reign of terror ended in July last year when a victim’s mother told a village head about her daughter being attacked.
Sulistyowati Irianto, a Catholic professor of legal anthropology at the University of Indonesia, criticized the sentence.
“Sex crimes are shocking and deserve stiff punishments because they can destroy a victim’s life and ruin their future” she told UCA News on April 28.
“Nevertheless, I totally disagree with the death penalty. No matter what the crime, it cannot be given. No one, including the state, can take someone else’s life, especially so when there is no evidence that the death sentence has a deterrent effect on crime.”
Life imprisonment for such crimes is a more appropriate punishment, she said.
Indonesia has held off conducting executions for several years, and the last known executions took place in 2016.
The April 26 ruling was the second such death sentence Bandung High Court has handed down this month.
On April 4, the court overturned a life sentence Bandung District Court handed down to Herry Wirawan, a 36-year-old religious teacher and Islamic boarding school owner, by imposing the death sentence.
Wirawan had been found guilty of raping 13 students aged 13-16, eight of whom he made pregnant.
Latest News
Credit: Source link
